On the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Senate passage of immigration reform, the House has yet to take action, and proponents of reform are trying to build momentum for the standstill issue.

The Democratic-led Senate passed the bipartisan legislation 68-32 in June 2013. The bill would have poured $46.3 billion into border security, streamlined the citizenship process for the almost 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., as well as updated visa programs.

In the past year, proponents of immigration reform have been increasingly frustrated by the lack of action from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

Boehner has said the House would work toward passing smaller bills targeted at different aspects of the immigration system, in lieu of the larger reform bill, though nothing has been passed.

In Denver on Friday, Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., joined with Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., to urge the House to take action on immigration before Congress leaves for its August recess.

“The time to act is now,” Udall said. “The problem is too big to ignore, and we have an enormous opportunity to fix a broken system. The Republicans in the House need to vote on the issue and stop disregarding the will of Americans.”

According to the most recent census, 21 percent of people in Colorado are Hispanic (12 percent of La Plata County is Hispanic).

Nicole Mosher, executive director of Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center in Durango, is the daughter of a Central American immigrant, and says growing up she remembers the difficulties her mother encountered as an undocumented immigrant.

Today, Mosher focuses on helping immigrants in crisis and works with employers in the community that need resources or help for their workers.

“People forget that some of these people are here legally, they have visas and their papers are in the process, but because of a lack of efficient immigration process, they are waiting in limbo and sometimes are deported before the process is even complete,” Mosher said.

“Families can be ripped apart while waiting,” she said.

In recent weeks, the issue of immigration has reached a boiling point as the Obama administration has struggled to deal with a recent influx of tens of thousands of unaccompanied child immigrants crossing the border. This has only fueled the fire for House Republicans who say they can’t trust the president to carry out the current laws let alone a sweeping reform bill.

While the immigration reform bill passed in the Senate, not everyone thinks immigration reform is in the country’s best interest.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said he felt like the country’s conversation about immigration reform and lax deportation policy is only encouraging immigrant workers to come to America and compete for jobs.

“People are having a hard time finding jobs. We are talking about a dramatic increase in the number of (immigrant) workers when the economy is struggling; workers are hurting, wages are down, unemployment is up,” Sessions said in the Senate on Thursday.

Bennet, one of the original “Gang of Eight” senators who sponsored the reform bill last year, said after a complete year of the House dragging its feet, it’s time to make a move.

“I think it’s clear what the American people want on this issue,” Bennet said. “This place has stopped listening to American people in many ways, so I hope the House will just let people vote.”

mbowerman@durangoherald.com. Mary Bowerman is a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald.